Hey guys and girls,

I have been doing a bit of photography as just a hobby and recently photographed an SDA race. When the area was well lit and out of the forrest areas the shots were coming out awesome. As soon as i moved into dark areas it was a constant fight with light!

for example:

Nice Bright Shot


Not So Nice Dark Shot


I was using a Nikon D40 slr with some old Cobra flashgun (not much settings available with the flash but the triggering was ok so i just played around with the shutter and aperture to get the lighting ok). The problem I was getting was that the light was lighting up the riders fine but the background became almost black. What is the best was to light up riders in the dark but at the same time maintaining the light of the surroundings?

Would a diffuser have helped? And would a remote flash have done a better job of lighting up the rider from low to cancel horrible shadowing?

Thanks for any advice

Another thing to check - there's lots of grainy noise in the flash shot, especially in the shadows.  It looks to me like your auto ISO is on and it's kicked in, cranking the ISO up high.

A higher ISO also gives less control over the actual flash as the sensor is more sensitive, you are more likely to blow out areas (the 'tolerance' on your settings is reduced).

Set the ISO to between 200 and 400 manually then you have more control on the camera.

Shutter controls ambient light.

Aperture controls flash.

Now just go and play lots!